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to see them at my wedding. Charles said something about them being … indisposed.”
    Nita looked uncomfortable. This barb had found its mark surely and swiftly, as Virginia had known it would. “Yes. About that,” Nita said, glancing at Virginia and then again at the grapefruits. Color crept into her cheeks and along the line of her brow. “They had planned on coming to your wedding, of course, but then something came up. …” Her voice trailed off helplessly. Nita had always been a bad liar and it appeared her skills at deception had not improved over the past year. Virginia wondered how in the world she had managed to pull off whatever trickery she had used to crush Charles into submission. Any fool could read Nita's intention in her face.
But then again
, Virginia thought unpleasantly,
I didn't see an ambush coming, either
. She stood watching her ex-daughter-in-law flounder around beneath her sharp steely gaze like a moth pinned to a mounting board.
    Nita cleared her throat and tried again. “I've been meaning to bring them by. They've gotten so big you'd hardly recognize them. And Logan's driving now. He just got his license.” She picked up a grapefruit. “I assumed Charles would bring them by to see you on one of his custody weekends, and I've been so busy planning …” She stopped. Color flooded her face. “I'm back in school, you know. My days are pretty crazy.”
    “But of course, you've been so busy planning the wedding and all,” Virginia murmured. “Didn't I hear that you were getting remarried?” This barb also found its mark.
    Nita put one hand on her forehead and rubbed the worry lines that appearedthere suddenly. “You know, I've been meaning to call you about that,” she began hesitantly.
    “Don't these look good?” Virginia said, picking up a grapefruit.
    “I've gotten so busy planning the wedding and being back in school and all.”
    “Two for a dollar,” Virginia said, sniffing the grapefruit. “Doesn't that seem a little expensive?”
    “But I had you on my list to call.”
    “When I was a child, you could buy a whole bag of grapefruits for a dollar.”
    “I thought since you hadn't seen the children in a while …”
    “Oranges, too,” Virginia said.
    “I thought you might like to attend the wedding,” Nita said flatly.
    “Oh, I'd just
love
to.” Virginia put the grapefruit down and smiled her most charming smile.
    Later that night, at dinner, she told Redmon about the invitation to Nita's wedding.
    “Aw, honey, you're not planning on going to that are you?” Redmon said. He sat with his elbows on the table, a knife in one hand and a fork in the other, hunkered down over his plate like a hyena guarding a freshly killed wildebeest.
    “Of course I'm going,” Virginia snapped, trying not to watch him eat. “Why wouldn't I go?” She was curious to see the life Nita had made for herself after giving up a half-million-dollar house in the suburbs and a country club membership all in the name of
love
. Running into her in the grocery store had been a personal coup. Virginia was glad to know she still had the power to manipulate her ex-daughter-in-law into doing things she didn't want to do. Now if she could only figure out some way to manipulate her husband.
    Redmon was proving more difficult to train than Virginia had originally anticipated. She had expected, after a few days, to have him well in hand, and here it was nearly a week later and he still insisted on slurping his soup and telling off-color jokes at the dinner table. He still persisted, for some unknown reason, in calling her “Queenie” and slapping her on the rear end whenever she was within striking distance.
    “But Queenie,” Redmon said, opening his mouth to reveal a mass of half-chewed pot roast. “I thought after what them girls done to your boy, Charles, you wouldn't want to go to that wedding.”
    Virginia leaned forward. “What
did
they do to him?” she asked grimly.
    Redmon grinned and smacked